By the Pale Moonlight
by Seven Ravens
Summary: What can you do when you're betrayed by that which rules over you?
1. Telephones

Author's Notes: I do not own the Ronin Warriors, the Warlords, Kayura, or Mia. Nor do I own the Mouri family; they are canon. This story could be considered as somewhat of a sequel to 'Moon Ritual' in 30 Tales.

**Chapter One: Telephones**

The smell of tide water was heavy tonight, as though she had never grown up with the sea air in her lungs. The shell chimes danced with the wind pulling a gray veil over the moon. Mouri Sayoko shifted the transmission into park, rolled the keys out of the ignition, and started for the darkened house.

The front door's stained glass washed the green of her eyes and her auburn hair in swaths of blue. She turned the lock, seeing through her mirror twin as she searched the shadows for life. Mother was gone for a show, but where was her dear little brother?

Gone down to the shore, she surmised. The lad was always shoulder-deep in the waves, often looking up to the deviant moon as though he loved her. Sayoko found her own comforts in the water, though she always regarded Cye's bonds with a little jealousy. He was given a power that, no matter how destructive, was ultimately benign and nothing short of mystical. Sometimes she wished she could know the delight of feeling the element bend to her will.

So when her own name came stabbing at her in the dark, the blood iced in her veins. "Sayoko! Sayoko, come here!"

Cye was home after all. She led through the living room markedly with knees readied for collision with random furniture. In the entry of her brother's room and reached for the light switch.

"No!" His voice was so sharp her hand drew back as though the electricity had run through her. "I have a migraine."

"Really? You sound fine." _Other than your temper_, she said inwardly. "Did you go to the doctor for that fever you had last week?"

"Yes, and nothing has helped. I've still got that, too. I made another hospital trip since then. The doctors don't know a damned thing. Do me a favor, will you? Make me some soup? I'm so hungry but the light hurts my eyes."

"Sure thing. Give me a few minutes."

There was nothing but a groan in reply. Sayoko closed the bedroom door, turned on the kitchen light, and set to work. How strange, she thought. Not even a month ago has was bubbling over with energy after one of his night swims. When she stopped in to visit three days later, he had collapsed. Whatever this vague illness is, it must have quite a grip on him.

She finished a small meal of miso and sashimi, pulled the switch chain on the hall table and cut the kitchen glare. A timid knock announced her presence and she opened the door to her brother's room. The sheets rustled. His shadow moved against the navy of the sky through the windows. The silhouette seemed freakishly large to her and it took all her will to fight the reflexive gasp. Instead she steadied her hands with the silver tray gleaming in the moonlight.

He said nothing more than a gruff thanks between bites of fish. Sayoko's eyes adjusted to the dimness and it was then that she saw the red thick over his fair skin as he held the soup bowl to greedy lips, more than any one man should have. In fact, the auburn hair seemed to run all the way up to his eyes glaring at her over the bowl with a certain hunger reserved for beasts.

The food disappeared more quickly than she had anticipated for someone who professed to be sick. "Sill hungry?"

"Mm-hmm." A little piece of flesh dropped from his lips only to be scraped up immediately into the teeth.

"Water?"

"I'm good." He swept up a jug from his feet and rattled the ice for her before craning his head back for a swig.

"Okay. Lie back down and I'll make you some more soup."

For the first time his voice was kind as it should have been. "Hey sis? Can you make some more fish for me, too? This is the first time I've eaten all day."

"Of course." Sayoko smiled, wondered if he could see it in the dark. Cye inhaled with a brief satisfaction and backed away from the silver between her hands.

In the living room she turned on the TV for cover noise and slid open the telephone table drawer. Here the family kept their address books. The shadow in that room had been too large to be her brother. It sounded like him, alright, and those were his eyes. Carnal and downright frightening, but his. Her fingers knew the danger. That was why they fished out the blue cotton-bound organizer and opened it at the D tab. The number she sought was right there on the first page, second one down.

The phone came with her into the kitchen, where she took a salmon fillet from the fridge and threw it on to grill. When the pink steak began to sizzle she washed her hands, shook the excess water in the sink, and rang the number into the rotary with still-wet fingers.

She opened the door to the deck and stood outside the noise of grilling fish, suddenly finding herself at a loss for words. Was the idea within her crazy? Could it really be, when her brother was the warrior decreed to channel the waters in a war between the light and dark?

The line clicked and an older male voice answered, "Good evening. Date residence."

"Oh. Yes," Sayoko stuttered, realizing she had been drifting. "I'm calling to speak with Sage. Is he in, please?"

"Just a moment." The phone muffled as it was set down. A minute passed in which she counted the waves, and then it came back up. The voice on the other end was younger than the first, though just as smooth and sounding older than she had anticipated. "This is Sage."

"Hello, Sage. This is Mouri Sayoko. Cye's sister."

An apprehensive pause and nothing more.

Sayoko continued, "This… may sound awkward, I've heard from Cye's stories that you're quite adept at the art of healing. He's had a fever for a while and it's not coming back down. I stopped by here just now and he's suffering from a migraine. The doctors haven't been able to do anything for him. Usually I would say this is just the flu with a bad headache on top, but…"

She drew a breath, forcing it out of herself. "He's _changing_. I can understand being sick and cranky, but he's been outright irritable for a while. The thing that really set me off, though, is this- I swore I saw hair all over him. I really don't know what's wrong with him and I thought you might. Do you have any oncoming engagements?"

There was no hesitation now. "That can be rearranged. I'll be there tomorrow."

"Thank you, Sage. You'll be compensated for the trip out."

"Don't worry about it. If Cye is as bad as you say, then I may be in the company of Rowen. You know the one of the Strata, yes?"

Sayoko had never met him but knew the name. "Yes."

"He has some medical training under his belt and may have some insight."

Turning to look at the blackened room where her brother sweated and awaited fish with a tense stomach, "Good, good. Maybe we should get Kento and Ryo out here to see him. I don't think it's that serious, but he's been bedridden for a while now. Maybe he'll get something out of the five of you being together."

"That's reasonable."

"I'll give Kento a call tomorrow." This was the only Ronin she had met. "Would you like me to call the others?"

"I can talk to them. I know their schedules, anyway. Expect whoever can make it tomorrow evening."

"We will be here."

"Good evening, then."

"Yes. Goodnight."

The line disconnected and left the searing to fill Sayoko's ears. She turned the meat and started another batch of miso, much larger this time. The steam rolled over her face as she wondered at the voice in the telephone and the aberrant boy in the other room.


	2. Navy On Black

Author's Notes: Reiki is a Japanese art of healing without touch, much like what Sage does to restore Ryo's vision in the series. If my medical mumbo jumbo doesn't make sense, forgive me. All I'm going off of is anatomy & physiology.

**Chapter Two: Navy On Black**

Any visitors to the Mouri home were greeted with a note taped to the inside of the glass, written in exaggerated sweeps of girlish kanji:

_DO NOT KNOCK. COME INSIDE - QUIETLY_

Ryo was the first to arrive that cold and rainy morning, parading unceremoniously into the front hallway and shaking the rainwater on the floor. Sayoko, excusing herself from the stove, regarded the absent-minded gesture in silence before leading him into the kitchen for a speech she was prepared to recite several times over today. She told him of the obscure illness that had befallen her little brother. The signs, the symptoms, even a warning to keep his feet soft around his room.

The dark-haired boy said very little. Instead he went to Cye's bedside and merely stood brooding over him.

Sayoko hated to admit it even to herself, but she was glad when Kento of the Hardrock showed up on her doorstep. There was nothing wrong with Ryo - she knew that she had him to thank for her life. It was the intense grief with which he looked upon her brother. Did he genuinely see something wrong here, or was his mood always so fervent?

It was Kento who remarked on the heat radiating through the thin sheet draped over the body. This he said in a rough whisper, and nothing else.

"I hadn't noticed," was all Ryo said.

Where Cye laid, he heard only muffled voices. He had been floating in the void within the waves of sleep that he had spent hours delving for. It was their smell that permeated, sharp as he grazed the shallows. A sharp smell overtook him at first. He knew a familiar trace Sayoko's soap and shampoo. And then there was Kento with the underlying odor of his muscle's salts. Then came the pungent smell of burnt leaves clinging to Ryo's clothes.

"Hey buddy, how ya feeling?" Kento leaned in rather close the moment Cye opened his eyes.

"I've been better. Hungry. What are you guys doing here?"

"I called them in," Sayoko volunteered.

"Why?" Cye's vision suddenly went red around the edges.

"I asked Rowen to take a look at you. Maybe he can figure out what's going on. These guys just wanted to make sure you're doing okay."

This satisfied Cye, who was too weak to let his temper rage for long. He was just thankful they saw him here in the darkness.

The boys immediately offered their assistance in cooking. Sayoko, much relieved, slipped into the living room to call home and report in to her husband.

* * *

Sage and Rowen arrived in tandem. Sayoko could only guess their identities by their hair - the blue-haired must belong to the sky and the other with gold hanging over sharp eyes was surely the one of Halo.

As she received the new guests she kept her voice low. "He only gets up for the bathroom or to take a shower. _That_ he still does religiously. Everything else, though… he's helpless. And he hates it. Don't be surprised if he snaps at you."

She knocked on the doorframe and walked into the dim room, where her brother shoveled food into his mouth from the plate laid on his chest. Wildfire and Hardrock shut the stove off and came in to watch.

"Rowen and Sage are here."

"Hey buddy, I need to turn on the light so I can take a look at you," Strata reached for the chain swinging from the ceiling fan.

"Wait!" The plate was thrown daringly onto the nightstand. Torrent dove under his sheets and clapped his palms over the fabric before his eyes. "The light hurts! Let my eyes adjust."

Rowen glanced uneasily at Sage and flicked on the bulbs. Torrent's hands were covered in hair so thick it nearly looked like fur. The nails were long and clouded. He would have to be going on three months without cutting those things!

For a moment nobody said a word. And then Cye broke the silence.

"I know what you're looking at. If that's weird to you, don't jump back now."

Slowly he pulled down the sheet. They all followed the hem, waiting for a break in the hairline to reveal itself. Instead the auburn sprawled over the forehead, the cheeks, the once-bare jaw. He saw their shock and turned his gaze away from theirs. "I tried shaving it, but what's the use? It's back within two days."

"How long ago did this start?" Strata dug a notebook from his kit and peered at him over the top of the paper with a pen at the ready.

"I don't know, I've been sleeping a lot lately. Sayoko?"

"Maybe a month?" the girl's eyes rolled back to recall. "He was sick when I was up here a few weeks ago. Our mom has been looking out for him."

"Where is she?"

"On the road for the annual art show."

"Mm hmm," the pen didn't record anything about these last details. "What else?"

Cye ran his nails through the hair on his forehead, reveling in the scratch. "Aside from this damned itch from all the hair that's been appearing over the last week or so? It's like I've had a case of the flu that I can't shake. I've got a fever, my body's weak and I feel like puking all the time. But I can't stop eating."

At this, Rowen stopped writing and stared at him again. "How often do you eat?"

"Whenever I can."

"All I do if I'm not at the store is cook," Sayoko remarked from where she stood in the corner.

"Right. Well, let me take a look at you." He turned and glanced at the others. "Privacy, please?"

"Oh. Right," Kento cleared his throat as he got moving. The others followed suit and Rowen shut the door behind them.

"I don't know why they called me in to do this. You really should go to a doctor, not a med student."

"With me looking like this? Right. They'd quarantine me into a sterile room and jab me with needles until I was half-dead."

* * *

"I need my pathology book," Rowen announced the moment he shut the door and headed for the front of the house, where his backpack sat by the front door. The Ronins and Sayoko said nothing, only trailed and waited as he leafed through the pages.

"His bones feel brittle, like they're decaying. It's like he has osteoporosis, but that takes years and shouldn't be happening to someone of his age and health." For a moment he scanned the pages before continuing, "Judging by what you said about his diet, Sayoko, it sounds more like a metabolic disorder. The disease that even remotely matches is Paget's disease."

"Paget's disease?" Ryo urged him on.

"Right. The osteoclasts in his bones work at a higher rate than the osteoblasts."

"In plain Japanese, Ro." Kento's forehead wrinkled in confusion.

"The cells that tear down the bones work faster than the ones that build. Usually it strikes only one bone, not the entire skeleton. So I can't really say what it is yet. I'll need to take some blood and urine samples to take back to the school lab."

"You want me to piss in a cup?" Cye grumbled from the doorway, where he was shielding himself from the living room light with the shadow of his hand. He was barefoot and stripped to the waist. The hair never stopped; it had swept over every surface of his body these past few days.

"You shouldn't be out of bed!" Sayoko immediately took him by the elbow and tried leading him back to the room. He merely stood unmoved against the yanks on his arm. His sister considered Strata's words and stopped tugging for fear of hurting him.

"No, he should get up and walk around. The pressure exercise exerts on the bones is said to stimulate the building cells."

Sayoko blinked at Rowen. "Well then, Cye, take a few laps around the house. I'll finish up dinner and you can eat on the deck. It's a nice night out."

The Ronin of water nodded sullenly and trudged out the back door, fighting a strange anger. He felt their pitying eyes on him the entire way. Was he really that horrid? He wrestled the heat and the nausea, yes. But he felt an underlying power fueling him. He wished he could claim it as the faint waves he still felt these years after bearing Torrent for battle. It was not. It tormented his body and it hungered. For what, he did not know. Food satiated him, of course, though it seemed so less and less as the days cycled on.

Being up and walking like this _did_ feel good, he mused as he started out for the deck wrapping round the house. He felt the slight dips in the glazed shale tiled out on the kitchen floor. The air flowing in with the door soothed his forming bedsores, the only bits of bare skin on his back. What was more, the moment he set foot outside, he could see everything as clear as day evening with clouds cloaking the moon. The patches of ray-soaked earth shone from the shadows cast by the trees. The sea horizon split against the sky, navy on black. Suddenly there were so many more stars, even over the light pollution of Yamaguchi to the north.

* * *

"So what about all that hair?" Ryo asked as his eyes raked the illustrations of Rowen's textbooks.

"I honestly don't know. My only guess could be that all the excess activity of his body is causing the integumentary system-"

"The what?" Kento cut in.

"The skin, nails, and hair. The fast metabolism has somehow thrown it into overdrive. It just makes me wonder what else is going on in his body. I'll take samples with me back to the school lab tomorrow. In the meantime, Sage, can you treat him with Reiki?"

"I'll do everything I can short of calling upon Halo. If only I _could _go that far. My sword is far more powerful than anything here in this plane."

"Can't you summon your armor?" Sayoko asked over her tea.

"Possibly," Sage admitted. "But to do so is disrupting the balance. That would be a last effort."

"Until then we will find any way to stem this," Rowen said into his book as he flipped the pages toward the treatment section. "You'll have to keep up with his appetite and, judging by the condition of his bones, you should start giving him vitamins. All the calcium and vitamin D you can. Have you told your mom about how much he's been eating lately?"

"No, while she's away I don't want her to be thinking of him any more than she already is."

Out on the deck, Cye heard this and felt shame wash over him. Sayoko had been sacrificing her time and money just to feed him and now she was hiding him from their mother. What a burden he had become!

In her worrisome report, Sayoko had forgotten to begin this last round of food. Cye felt an flash of anger with his sister for this, then swallowed it down. Somewhere in his head he realized how foolish this was. So long as he was mobile like this, he must quit troubling her and find his own means. Town was not far away.

And then he looked down at the hair gleaming red in the light. How would he obtain food without alarming the holy hell out of someone?

Little flits of silver below the sea's surface danced and rolled. Fish. Never before had he considered slicing them alive and even now the idea quelled his stomach for a moment. But his hunger was too powerful. After a time the fish looked more and more like writhing bits of meat, beckoning to him with shining scales.

He had to do _something_. Just standing here, the moonlight was boring into his eyes. He wanted to scream. Even her light was too much for him now as she bared herself from the clouds.

* * *

"Could he have contracted more than one illness? Like a compromised immune system let something else in?" Sage leaned over Rowen's shoulder to study the books. He turned away after a moment, not understanding half the words on the page.

"Maybe. The strange thing is how fast this is acting."

"Sayoko, has he bee able to get up like this since he's been sick?" For the first time in a long while, Kento of Hardrock, spoke from where he sat on the chopping block.

"No."

"What are you getting at, Kento?" Rowen finally looked up from his books.

"Well, she said he was fine about a month ago. And he's been getting worse lately, but he has the energy to get up. He's always hungry, but look at him! He's gotten bigger since I last saw him."

"That could be the Paget's disease. It distorts the bones."

"Yeah, but that doesn't totally explain the hair. And I've never seen him with such a bad temper."

Nobody knew what to say. Kento went on, "Do you think it's more than just a sickness?"

Sage, always the skeptic, scoffed at the idea forming among them. "You really think…?"

"I do," Sayoko jutted in. She pushed her chair back just as she realized she hadn't seen her brother walking around for a few minutes. She cupped her hands on the glass, saw nothing, and threw the door open.

The Ronins watched as she disappeared around the right side of the house and came around from the left only a moment later. Fear played upon her face.

"Cye's gone!"


	3. Carnal

Author's Notes: The name Kaguya will be explained.

**Chapter Three: Carnal**

Cye cursed the sting of salt with the water lapping at his sores. Cold swells left beads dripping from the hair of his torso as they broke against his hips. Before him, fish rolled and taunted through the veil of the waves.

His breath had instinctually been racking in and out through deep pulls since he'd started from the house. When he felt his blood was bright with oxygen he took one last draw and dove, kicking so fiercely his ankles thrashed in the air.

For the first time in weeks he felt no pain. The pressure ache exerted on his body was soothed here. In these muscles that should be withered, he felt a reservoir of power waiting to be tapped. The taste of brine filtered in through the stretches of a smile. He channeled the energy into splitting the water and propulsion after the saury swimming curiously in the distance, each fiber pushing him further into a newfound speed.

A curious thing. Sea creatures had always swum about him as though he belonged among them. Now they seemed to feel his intention, for they flickered out of his reach. Some shied away merely at a glance. Gone was the joy. His appetite won out and his mind let go of control. The animal came down.

In his frustration he felt himself gain a burst of speed. It was enough for a near miss. He arched and turned and swiped a fish from its school. Its companions jumped at the sound of spine snapping in Cye's fist and foolishly settled around him, thinking only one would appease him. His left hand lashed to catch another.

All his might was driven into swimming up with these two fish. The moment he tore through the surface the live fish was already at his mouth. He pulled his lip back to tear off the silver skin and drink the innards. The blood was cold. Cartilaginous bones crunched and scratched at his throat. Shock-struck flesh writhed all the way down, his own guts squirming against the barely-dead thing.

Yet his jaws never stopped working and once the live saury was consumed he turned his focus on the one whose life had already been crushed. When they were both gone he floated contently in the bobs.

A radius of water danced dark and clear around him. The fish kept their distance, fearfully curious as they melded with the slow currents. New energy or not, the hunt had sapped much of it. He would have to go for another or head back to shore. Suddenly he quite liked the challenge. One more breath and he went under.

* * *

The five made a line along the walkway descending the cliff. Sayoko, who knew these boards, made a gap between herself and the Ronin. The others trailed behind so as to keep their footing. Sage caught up to her on the shore, his eyes tearing at the gleams and spaces of ocean before them.

"Are you sure he's down here?" Ryo, following close behind, sidled up to Sayoko's elbow.

"Yes. He wouldn't go anywhere else." Her eyes didn't leave the water. She cupped her hands to her mouth and screamed. "_Cye!_"

* * *

The saury were getting beyond him. He'd chased them down until the rays of blue moonlight barely touched the floor. They no longer gleamed; their silhouettes shrank away as his body slowed. The excessive hair carried great weight in his element.

Here his energy abandoned him. He drifted, looking around for anything to go after, and felt his lungs begin to burn. It didn't make sense, he thought. He was perfectly capable of holding his breath ten times longer. Perhaps this sickness really was affecting him more than he realized. He decided to kick up for air. On the initial motion the burn bloomed into a desperate need.

It was a long way up. Between his fatigued muscles and dwindling oxygen, fear overran his nerves.

Breath began to escape as he surfaced between the waves. The first take of air was sweet relief. The second began to curl his joints. He wondered, what…? just before pain locked his bones.

His proximity to the cliffs lighted upon him only as a swell rocked him forward. The waterline dropped so sharply he bounced off a stone and wedged his arm into a crevice.

Gravity intensified the heat in the angles of his body. Hanging stretched between the rocks, he could hardly pull in enough breath to let out a lone howl of misery.

* * *

On shore Sayoko began to double back. There had been a song on the sea wind, faint and pained and undeniably her brother.

"What is it?" Kento treaded over the wet stones behind her. He looked back and saw Ryo following. Sage and Rowen were checking the far shore and the tree line.

"I heard Cye," came the answer over the crests. With a surefooted drop the elder Mouri disappeared from sight. Then her voice shrieked, "He's down here! Kento, help! He's trapped!"

* * *

All Cye could do was ride and breath with the sea's rhythym that sent him flopping against the boulders. Just as he wondered how long he had until his shoulder gave out, hands closed around his elbow. An exhausted moan escaped his lips.

Sayoko and Kento tenderly lifted him into the hands of Wildfire, Halo and Strata. The weight of his body hanging free between their arms instantly sent his nerves into shock- especially his shoulder. Cye let his head drop back on Ryo's arm to protest, "Put me back… Put me back in the water…"

"Sorry buddy. We're not gonna do that." Rowen glanced over his shoulder, unable to turn with a forearm under his locked knees.

At this Cye thought about a kneecap to the temple, make Strata see stars. But his taut body was nothing against three Ronin. Then he wondered how he direct such a malignant thought at his comrade. His body, his mind, and now his own will were going beyond him as they carried him from the shoreline.

The world jostled upside-down in his vision. Nothing, nothing was his anymore. And then his eyes caught the moon, her shadows still familiar. Yet she was cruel to him. She pulled at him. It was her, he was sure of it.

"What have I done?" he shrieked, feeling the Ronin tighten their grip. "I've served you! I worship you, Kaguya! What have I done wrong?"

They set him down in the sand. Sage and Ryo backed up toward Kento and Sayoko who had been close at their heels. Only the bearer of Strata knelt over him, taking in the bent joints and unsettled muscles.

"What the hell is wrong with him?" Sayoko barked.

"It looks like decompression sickness," was Rowen's diagnosis. "But I thought that only happened with scuba diving…?"

Sayoko merely shrugged, more concerned with her brother who continued to scream and writhe.

Cye heard none of this. Inside his head there was nothing between the ringing in his ears and washes of furious pain.

"What have I done? What have I done?" With a cry he strained his head back into the sand. Around him everyone shrank back from the moon mirrored green in his eyes.


	4. Symptoms of a Werewolf

Author's Notes: Thank you for the reviews! I'm glad you are all enjoying it so far. I am the daughter of two lapsed Catholics, so my hold on theology is tenuous at best. I apologize in advance if anything depicted is incorrect.

**Chapter Four: Symptoms of a Werewolf**

Racing up the walkway, Mouri Sayoko's foot gave with the water and flew out from under. Her knees cracked on the planks. The pain was fantastic, yet never quite registered in her head. Instead this delay allowed her a glance back at the Ronins as she pulled herself up again. They were all gathered around the water warrior whom they had just pulled from the teeth of the sea. She got up, ignoring the pain in her knees, and pushed on toward the house.

"Geez, Cye," Kento huffed as he worked his way along the cliff's side with the contorted body in his arms. "You of all people should know to hold off on swimming for half an hour after you eat."

"No…" Torrent groaned. "My joints are on fire."

"Definitely sounds like the bends," Rowen noted, mostly to himself.

The five of them emerged atop the cliff and found themselves illuminated in the beams of Sayoko's car idling empty beside the house, its right rear door hanging wide.

The sight of the half-cooked food that sat cooling on the deck rails brought back the sensation of muscle writhing in his teeth. He turned his head into the crook of his arm, pleading, "Set me down, Kento. Before I'm sick on your shoes."

Hardrock swung and set him down with all the martial grace of their old days. The shifting gravity was all too much for Torrent, for hot bile and flesh erupted from his mouth the moment his hands and knees were steady on the ground. His comrades looked on until he was finished, their shadows blocking the headlights.

Rowen helped Kento load Cye just as his sister appeared with arms full of pillows and an array of kitchen crockery sloshing out tap water. After handing off the pillows to the archer she tore around and slid into the driver's seat, pulled the transmission into reverse, and sat with a foot on the brake while situating the cups in the holders and crevices on both sides of the center console.

"Perhaps I should drive?" Strata offered. "I know where we're going."

"You can direct me. Get in," the girl said with iced words, her eyes boring through the windshield.

Rowen climbed into the back and positioned the half-conscious Torrent's ankles in his lap. Halo ducked into the passenger's seat.

"We'll take my car," Ryo said, his thumb jutted at his little sports number parked beneath the willow tree.

"Well go. I'm not waiting," all the hospitality had drained from Sayoko's voice. Before she had even shut her door, the car was rolling backwards.

* * *

"So don'tcha think this is pretty solid evidence?" Kento's arms crossed over his seatbelt.

"What's that?" Ryo checked his mirrors before switching lanes.

"Dude, like I was trying to say before. Cye's been as sick as a dog but there's nothing actually wrong with him." Ticking off the words on his fingers, "His appetite has gotta be worse than mine, he's pissy, and he's covered in hair. He's been bedridden until tonight when all of a sudden he just up and runs off underneath a full moon. And then when we find him he's half-dead between the rocks he's been swimming around all his life. And _then_ he starts twisting up and puking fish guts and trying to howl his own guts out. Sounds an awful lot like the symptoms of a werewolf."

A beat passed along the backdrop of Hagi.

"Are you kidding?"

"Well it's not like Rowen's coming up with any real answers other than signs of some bone disease. We all know that's bullshit anyways."

"Hey, in case you forgot, we're heading to a university medical lab. Besides, werewolves don't exist."

Kento settled his chin into his hand and stared at the world outside. "Yeah, and neither do we."

* * *

The lull of the radio was all that could be heard over the tides of breath roaring in and out of Torrent's chest. On occasion he would reach blindly for water and would be obliged by either Halo or Strata, the latter looking on with curious calculations in the putrid air. Nearly half the road had passed under the wheels before he drifted.

"Will we have to be cautious of security?" Sage asked with his voice low over the snores.

From the backseat came the answer, "If we make good time, no. I know the rounds. Even if they're in the med building all you'll have to do is stay in the car. I'll make some sorry excuse about needing one of the books that we keep for reference. A lot of times I'm there this late so they know me. Luckily the serious students know where there are certain keys to certain labs."

"How's he doing?" Sayoko straightened her back to get a glimpse of the unconscious head jostling with the ride.

"He's out pretty good. Surprising, but not really. I can't figure out these symptoms. They're non-specific, yet they appear to be cyclical. His metabolism is running so high that any particular problem ailing him seems to burn off within a short span, which may explain the fluctuations in his temperature. Earlier I was really worried, but he's just sort of melted back to normal. As normal as this is, I guess."

* * *

"We're good," Rowen hustled down the stairs back to the car, looking off to a far parking lot where Ryo and Kento were rolling in with the lights off.

"Hey buddy, think you're able to get on your feet?" He craned his neck to meet Cye's drowsy gaze pointed at the floor. The sick boy nodded and fumbled for the latch.

Sayoko parked and left the car running. Together with Sage she staggered up, a shoulder hooked under her brother's arm. In the distance the other Ronins nonchalantly strolled along the sidewalk for low profile.

Once inside the hematology wing Sage searched around for a comfortable seat as he did not dare to expose himself by running back out to the car. A difficult task, considering the lab was not constructed for patient comfort. After a moment's browsing the halls he found a gurney. Rowen raided cabinets while Sayoko stood pale under the water Ronin's frame.

"I need to sit," he whispered. She nodded and set him down on the rolling bed.

"Will you be okay?"

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna go outside then. Meet up with the boys."

"This might be a bit. Go get something to eat with Kento," Rowen's eyes didn't lift from the pressure cuff he was fixing round the auburn arm.

"Bring me something," Cye perked up at the idea of a meal.

"Anything in particular?" Sayoko stopped in the doorway.

"No."

"I'll join you after we get him settled in a minute," Sage said, wheeling the bed behind an island of centrifugal machines.

"Alright. Bye." With that, she darted from the cast of light.

In the moment before she turned Cye saw her look at him with the same horror as the day he'd first left for battle.

* * *

Taillights glared red far down the road when Sage was emerging from the antiseptic halls. He pulled his collar up in the early autumn wind.

"Where's Sayoko going?" He asked.

Kento pointed back whence they came. "She's going to that Catholic joint up the street."

"You mean that St. Edmund's church?"

"Yeah. She said she'll back in a while. C'mon, we're gonna go get some food."

* * *

"Please be unlocked," her hands felt empty without her turquoise rosary. "Please, please…"

This church did not hold the grandeur of the cathedrals she had seen on trips to her mother's homeland. It was perhaps three stories high, the spires peaking alongside the other rooftops. Though the slopes of roof and glass webs set it apart among the darkened buildings, it was the safety of the cross' shadow painted by the moon that drew her in.

The door was free with her reach.

She smiled. As she stepped in she raised her voice from its pleading whisper. "Thank you, Lord!"

With her right hand she anointed her fingers with holy water and crossed herself before crossing the threshold. She instinctively looked up, always loving the gothic rush inspired by the vaulted swirling arches and rather anticipating the associations of peace it brought to her. Instead the trio of candles lighting the altar reached the crucifix and the floor of the sanctuary.

Sayoko waded in the glow down the heart of the nave past the rows of abandoned pews in favor of the lone kneeler. Tears stabbed at her eyes, pushing her into a run. She collapsed into clasped hands and a choked sob to begin her prayer.


End file.
